


how long have you two been together?

by paxatonic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Double Date, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fake Dating, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-07 00:11:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11047242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxatonic/pseuds/paxatonic
Summary: prompt I saw somewhere: one guy asks two girls on a double date and they agree but then they show up to the date and the guys realize that they're together and then one of the girls ask how long they've been together and they just go along with it





	how long have you two been together?

“Steven Grant Rogers, we’re going on a date.” Tony announced as he barged into their apartment. 

Steve jumped, heart racing. “W-What?”

The other man stopped in front of the couch, grinning at his best friend. “I was just in the quad talking to Pepper Potts; me & her, you and Natasha Romanoff, double date tonight at Coulson’s.”

Steve calmed down, realizing the situation. “Aw, come on, I hate it there. The owner is so creepy.”

“Hey- Phil is adorable! He’s just a super big fan of Mr. Quarterback.” Tony dropped onto the couch and slung his arm around Steve’s shoulders, looking at him. Steve looked back and sighed; more of these close moments had been happening lately, and it was starting to get really fucking hard to pretend he didn’t have the biggest gayest crush on Tony Stark.

“Alright, whatever. But I am not staying if you get drunk and start making out with her.” Steve gave Tony a pointed look.

“Great!” Tony grinned, jumping up and heading towards the bedroom. “Now, let’s see if you’ve got anything to wear. Doubtful.”

Steve shook his head. What a loveable asshole.

 

-

 

“This really wasn’t necessary.” Steve pulled at the blazer Tony had lent him. It didn’t quite fit, fitting most snuggly around his upper arms, and it didn’t button at all. Underneath he had a dark blue button up that certainly could have gone by itself but Tony had insisted.

“You’re just self-conscious; you look great!” Tony assured him.

“Alright, alright. When are these girls supposed to get here, anyways?” Steve took a glance around.

“Uh, now.” Tony gestured towards the door, where Pepper and Natasha had just entered, both looking somewhat stunning in similar black dresses, talking, laughing, and most notably holding hands. The two men gaped for a moment before looking to each other and back, “it’s a girl thing, right?”

“Yeah, totally, they’re just… good friends.” Steve nodded. They both stood when the girls got to the table, smiling.

Pepper reached out and took Steve’s hand, smiling, “Steve, hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Pepper. I’m in a few of Tony’s classes.”

“Gives me a pretty good run for my money on top spot.” Tony grinned.

“Oh shut up, prodigy.” Pepper rolled her eyes, then turned to Natasha. “This is-”

“Natasha, yeah, we’ve met.” Steve nodded to her. “We also have a few classes together.”

“Oh! Great! We’re all acquainted, then?” She smiled and they all sat down- except pepper was sitting in front of Steve and Natasha in front of Tony. The two men shot each other a look and Tony shrugged, smirking. Steve rolled his eyes.

“So, Pepper,” Steve started, “are you also an engineer?”

“Oh, hell no.” She laughed. “I’m a business major. I just also have an interest in science, but it’s nothing serious.” She waved her hand dismissively.

“Don’t let her sell herself short,” Natasha cut in, resting an arm on the back of Pepper’s chair. “If she wasn’t so damn good as business she’d be off changing the science world, I’m sure. I get science pretty decently, but the stuff she comes home talking about? Right over my head, I swear.”

“Oh, so, you live together, too?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, well, we’ve been together since freshman year, so come junior year it just seemed natural.” Pepper shrugged. Steve glanced at Tony again at “together,” but the man seemed unphased. 

“Well that’s great, same with me and Steve, saves you on rent and having to find a roommate.” Tony rested his elbows on the table.

“Yeah, as if you need help with rent.” Steve rolled his eyes with a smile. “Even without your parents you could just invent something that changes the world every month.”

“You see, this is why I keep you around. I don’t even need to love myself, you do it for me.” Tony smiled playfully, bumping their shoulders.

“No, I think you love yourself anyways.” 

The table laughed. Pepper squinted at Steve’s blazer, “haven’t I seen that Tony wear that before?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve looked down at it awkwardly, “it’s his, but I borrowed it for tonight.

“Aww, I love couples sharing clothing. Me and Nat do it all the time.” She smiled, not missing a beat before turning to Natasha and grabbing her hand, “hey, babe, have you got any makeup? I’m gonna go touch up in the bathroom.”

“Hopefully not for me, you know you’re goddamn beautiful as is.” She grinned, making Pepper grin too.

“Only a little bit for you. Also stop being cute. You’re supposed to be cold hearted, what happened to that Natasha?”

“She’s gone, you’re stuck with me.” Nat leaned over and kissed Pepper on the cheek before digging through her purse- Tony swears he saw the glint of a pocket knife, was that two?- before pulling out a smaller makeup bag and handing it to Pepper, who took it and went off to the bathroom. Then she looked up and smiled at the boys. “So. How long have you two been together?”

Across the table, the two men had become very quiet as they watched the exchange, and were now realizing that there had been very very fundamental misunderstanding here. Tony started stammering, for once in his life not knowing what to say, so Steve panicked and grabbed his hand, “six years.”

Nat whistled. “Wow, that’s quite a while. Highschool sweethearts, huh?”

Now it was Steve’s turn to stammer, feeling both Nat and Tony looking at him. Tony put on a smile and turned to Nat, “Yeah, ever since freshman year.” He squeezed Steve’s hand. “I was a transfer, saw him in english and- well, who couldn’t fall in love with this face?”

They laughed, but Steve held up a tentative hand, “well, that’s not exactly what happened, I mean, we  _ hated  _ each other when we first met.”

“Really? Golden boy Rogers and Playboy Stark didn’t get along at first meeting?” Nat laughed. “Really, though, lots of us do wonder how you two started dating.”

_ People think we’re dating? _ Steve wondered. “Well, we only had that one class together freshman year, and like Tony said he was a transfer; apparently he’d already completed most of highschool at some boarding school, but he wanted “ _ the real deal _ ,” his words.”

“Shitty public school was a dream of mine.” Tony shrugged. “I made the school look great so they kind of let me do whatever I wanted.”

“Which I hated! He did whatever the hell he wanted, which certainly wasn’t schoolwork. I always got the sense that he was a genius- I just hated that he acted like it, you know? Like he was better than us for being normal. And I didn’t think it should exempt him from doing the work.”

“Mr. Man here loves hard work.” Tony rubbed Steve’s back as he took a drink of water, Steve leaning into the touch naturally.

It was then that Pepper returned to the table, Natasha smiling at her. “Hey babe. Steve and Tony were just talking about how they met.”

“Oh, I love those stories!” Pepper smiled. Natasha summarized what they’d said quickly and Pepper turned to them, motioning for them to continue excitedly.

“Um, so, we hated each other.” Steve shifted in his seat. “I was always kind of a dick to him, because I was always to disapproving of his behavior, and he was a dick right back.”

“I’d like to think I’ve always been charming.” Tony smirked.

“Yeah, you think that.” Steve chuckled. “But the teacher we had actually ended up being sort of a hardass. She never put up with Tony’s shit, but he didn’t take her seriously because all of the teachers had to do whatever to keep him happy, pretty much.”

“Except her. First semester exams came around, and she said she’d fail me unless I did the exam project, in which we had to write a short screenplay- two or three scenes- about whatever we wanted that had scenes that emulated ones from plays we had read.” Tony shrugged, dismissive of it even in retrospect. “I, of course, hadn’t bothered to read any of them; I didn’t even have copies.”

“I was the unlucky bastard he got assigned to, and was probably the only one in the class who wouldn’t let him just sort of tag along for the ride. I forced him to come over to my house every other day so we could go through scenes and ideas. It was probably the most aggravating experience of my life.”

“That’s just cause you’re a lit nerd.” Tony snorted. “I’m sorry I don’t have a ton of strong opinions of  _ Death of a Salesman. _ ”

“He won’t admit it, but he actually started to really liked that one once we went through it together.” Steve smirked at the girls.

“Anyways, we argued a lot, and barely got anything done, and I just wanted to pay someone to write the thing for us but we was determined. Jesus, I forgot how annoying you were.” Tony laughed. “But it was mostly my fault we were almost late turning it in”

“No, it was definitely your fault. He showed up to my house one Saturday night, saying that I needed to loosen up and live my life, and so instead of working we ended up going out and partying. It ended up  _ not  _ being the worst thing in my life, and I’ve never been a party person. But we got super drunk and walked back to my house, passing out in my front yard. We had to do most of the project that day, both with massive hangovers, but we got along for the first time basically ever.”

“That day-” Tony looked at Steve with a thoughtful smile. “It was special. Not only was he fucking nice to me, which seemed like a miracle itself, he took care of me. He cooked me breakfast and got me asprin- I guess I hadn’t even thought that he was in pain, too. He’s always taking care of me.” Tony grabbed Steve’s hand and squeezed it, Steve assuming he was just really trying to sell it. “I kind of fell in love with him that day.”

Well, he’s doing a great job.

Even Steve was a little convinced.

“Y-Yeah.” Steve stammered. “We had to perform a scene in front of the class, and I had all the great analysis and connection to the text while he had a lot of the humor that made it great. After that we decided to be friends.” Steve nodded, finishing the story.

“And boyfriends? When did that happen?” Pepper asked, catching Steve off guard.

“Uh, not long after.” He nodded.

“I woke him up on christmas day with a bow on my head and held up a mistletoe.” Tony smirked.

Steve laughed, hitting Tony on the shoulder. “I don’t think it happened any time special. We spent so much time together, y’know, and one night I guess.” He shrugged.

“Well, that’s great. You two are meant for each other.” Natasha smiled, and the two men nodded awkwardly. They talked more after, ordering food and thankfully not touching on the topic of relationships again, Steve skillfully steering the conversation far away from sex, much to Tony’s dismay. At the end of the night they all said goodbye outside of the restaurant, Tony wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist as they waved at the girls. 

Once they were gone he dropped the arm and coughed. “Well, that wasn’t how I expected that to go.”

“You didn’t think, even once?” Steve asked as they started walking the other direction. “It just totally went over your head when you were setting this up that they were dating, and thought we were, too. And aren’t you and Pepper friends?”

“We’re not  _ that  _ close! And no, in fact, it sounded very much like they were friends.” He paused. “Well, looking back, I probably could have caught on a  _ little  _ faster than I did.”

“And they call you a genius.” Steve shook his head, laughing. They fell into a comfortable silence for another block, before Steve couldn’t hold back, “about what you said, in the restaurant, about that day freshman year where we both had hangovers?”

Tony tensed up, but nodded. “Yeah? What about it?”

“It, uh… nothing, it’s just… it’s funny. The way you said it. Cause that’s actually the day _ I _ fell in love with  _ you _ .” Tony stopped in his tracks and Steve stopped, turning to him. He cast his eyes downwards, hands stuck in his pockets. “That’s the day you fixed my toaster while half asleep and then almost passed out in your eggs. I dragged out into the living room- I was so tiny back then. You were so groggy, you started mumbling about how handsome I was and it made me bright red. Then we finished the project and I helped you to my room, and you fell asleep in my bed and- well, I realized how beautiful you were, and I kind of… fell in love with you.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean sure you were a self-destructive asshole, but that’s the moment I saw through it all. And I’ve loved you ever since.”

Tony was silent for a long time, which made Steve extremely nervous. Then he bit his lip he met Steve’s gaze, mumbling, “why didn’t you tell me?”

Steve blinked. “Uh, I-I… was scared. I mean, you’re Tony Stark. First of all I didn’t know you liked guys until senior year, but even then it was like, why would he like me? I had absolutely no chance. I still don’t, really-”

Steve cut off his own ramblings as Tony took a few steps that closed the gap between them, wrapping a hand around the back of Steve’s neck and kissing him, pushing him against the nearest wall. His other hand grabbed onto the blazer, tugging at it and pulling them closer. Steve ran his hand through Tony’s hair, grabbing onto a handful of it, his other hand drifting down the man’s side and settling on his hip. They pulled away panting and looking at each other with small smiles.

“I meant what I said,” Tony said. “Jesus fucking christ. We’re idiots, aren’t we?”

“You mean because we’ve been in love with each other since 9th grade but never told the other? Yeah, we’re a little dumb.” Steve smiled, pulling Tony back in to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SO BAD @ ENDINGS


End file.
